Norman Mineta: A Pioneer

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By Gil Asakawa

Norman Mineta has a talent that’s perfectly suited for politics: He has an amazing memory for peoples’ names, faces and the last time he met them, even if that was years ago. But that’s not the only reason he’s been a successful lawmaker at various levels including the President’s Cabinet.

Mineta was born in 1931 in San Jose, California but during World War II was incarcerated with his family at Heart Mountain, Wyoming in a concentration camp for people of Japanese descent. There the young Mineta met and became friends with Alan Simpson, who lived nearby, and who would go on to be a U.S. Senator from Wyoming. They met because both were Boy Scouts, and Simpson’s troop visited the camp.

Mineta attended U.C. Berkeley and graduated in 1953, then served in the U.S. Army in Japan and Korea before joining his father’s insurance business. In 1967 he got his first taste of politics when he was appointed to the San Jose City Council to fill a vacant seat. Two years later he ran for that seat and won his first election. He became Mayor of San Jose in 1971 then a U.S. Congressman 1975, serving until 1995, representing the world’s technology hub: Silicon Valley.

In 1977, Mineta and New York congressman Frank Horton introduced a proclamation that named the first 10 days of May as “Asian-Pacific Heritage Week.” That week later turned into our current Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. With his old friend Senator Simpson, Mineta helped get the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 passed, which led to President Ronald Reagan’s apology for the Japanese-American internment and reparations for those who were interned and their families.

He became the first Asian-American to serve in the White House when President Bill Clinton appointed him Secretary of Commerce in 2000. Although a Democrat, he was named Secretary of Transportation by George W. Bush in 2001, and was asked to stay on for Bush’s second term, making him the longest-serving Transportation Secretary ever. His first year in the post was tested by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when he made the decision to ground all civilian aircraft in the days following the attacks.

He’s worked in the private sector ever since, and is still very active in the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. The airport in Jan Jose is named after him, and the Japanese American Museum of San Jose in the city’s Japantown district was built next door to Mineta’s childhood home.

And he still has that amazing ability to remember people!